Author: Art Diamond

Fish Would Remember More if Hot Water Could Be Air Conditioned

(p. A4) . . ., a new study suggests for the first time that high water temperatures can cause memory loss in reef fish, and even render them unable to learn at all.

. . .

The researchers designed a maze with a reward in one hallway. For about two weeks before maze training began, three groups of fish were gradually exposed to different temperatures: 28to 28.5 degrees Celsius for the control group, 30to 30.5 Celsius for the second, and 31.5 to32 Celsius for the third.

. . .

The researchers spent five days training the fish to navigate the maze and to associate a blue tag with their reward. Five days after training ended, they tested the fish to see which groups could remember how to find the tag, and their reward, in the maze.

The control group did well, quickly remembering how to reach the reward in the maze. But fish in even the moderately hot group didn’t fare as well. Although they learned to navigate the maze quickly during training, five days later, all evidence of their experience had vanished. In earlier experiments, Dr. Luchiari found that damselfish could remember experiences for at least 15 days, so an inability to remember the maze after only five was striking.

Fish in the hottest group failed to learn the maze at all, taking roughly the same amount of time to navigate it throughout the whole experiment.

For the full story, see:

Rebecca Dzombak. “Fish Get More Forgetful In Higher Temperatures.” The New York Times (Thursday, Aug. 24, 2023): A4.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date Aug. 23, 2023, and has the title “Damselfish in Distress: Warmer Seas Might Be Clouding Their Brains.”)

Caution in Interpreting Alternative Explanations of Ancient Artifacts

A few weeks ago, an article highlighted the finding of female bones in a burial along with a sword. It was interpreted that the sword belonged to a distinguished female warrior and was interpreted as evidence against patriarchal assumptions.

(p. D1) The epitaph on more than one Roman tombstone read: “A gang of doctors killed me.”

Medical remedies have improved since those times — no more smashed snails, salt-cured weasel flesh or ashes of cremated dogs’ heads — but surgical instruments have changed surprisingly little. Scalpels, needles, tweezers, probes, hooks, chisels and drills are as much part of today’s standard medical tool kit as they were during Rome’s imperial era.

Archaeologists in Hungary recently unearthed a rare and perplexing set of such appliances. The items were found in a necropolis near Jászberény, some 35 miles from Budapest, in two wooden chests and included a forceps, for pulling teeth; a curet, for mixing, measuring and applying medicaments, and three copper-alloy scalpels fitted with detachable steel blades and inlaid with silver in a Roman style. Alongside were the remains of a man presumed to have been a Roman citizen.

The site, seemingly undisturbed for 2,000 years, also yielded a pestle that, judging by the abrasion marks and drug residue, was probably used to grind medicinal herbs. Most unusual were a bone lever, for putting fractures back in place, and the handle of what appears to have been a drill, for trepanning the skull and extracting impacted weaponry from bone.

The instrumentarium, suitable for performing complex operations, provides a glimpse into the advanced medical prac-(p. D4)tices of first-century Romans and how far afield doctors may have journeyed to offer care. “In ancient times, these were comparatively sophisticated tools made of the finest materials,” said Tivadar Vida, director of the Institute of Archaeology at Eötvös Loránd University, or ELTE, in Budapest and leader of the excavation.

Two millenniums ago Jászberény and the county around it were part of the Barbaricum, a vast region that lay beyond the frontiers of the Empire and served as a buffer against possible outside threats. “How could such a well-equipped individual die so far from Rome, in the middle of the Barbaricum,” mused Leventu Samu, a research fellow at ELTE and a member of the team on the dig. “Was he there to heal a prestigious local figure, or was he perhaps accompanying a military movement of the Roman legions?”

. . .

The tool-laden grave was discovered last year at a site where relics from the Copper Age (4500 B.C. to 3500 B.C.) and the Avar period (560 to 790 A.D.) had been found on the surface. A subsequent survey with a magnetometer identified a necropolis of the Avars, a nomadic peoples who succeeded Attila’s Huns. Among the rows of tombs, the researchers uncovered the man’s grave, revealing a skull, leg bones and, at the foot of the body, the chests of metal instruments. “The fact that the deceased was buried with his equipment is perhaps a sign of respect,” Dr. Samu said.

That is not the only possibility. Dr. Baker said that she often cautioned her students about interpreting ancient artifacts, and asked them to consider alternative explanations. What if, she proposed, the medical tools were interred with the so-called physician because he was so bad at his practice that his family and friends wanted to get rid of everything associated with his poor medical skills? “This was a joke,” Dr. Baker said. “But it was intended to make students think about how we jump to quick conclusions about objects we find in burials.”

For the full story, see:

Franz Lidz. “Old Roman Medicine Wasn’t So Pleasant.” The New York Times (Tuesday, June 13, 2023): D1 & D4.

(Note: ellipsis added.)

(Note: the online version of the story also has the date June 13, 2023, and has the title “Scalpel, Forceps, Bone Drill: Modern Medicine in Ancient Rome.”)

To Cut Out Costs of Car Dealership Middlemen, Tesla Is Selling Direct from Indian Reservation Showrooms

(p. D6) Tesla is ramping up efforts to open showrooms on tribal lands where it can sell directly to consumers, circumventing laws in states that bar vehicle manufacturers from also being retailers in favor of the dealership model.

Mohegan Sun, a casino and entertainment complex in Connecticut owned by the federally recognized Mohegan Tribe, recently announced that the California-based electric automaker will open a showroom with a sales and delivery center this fall on its sovereign property, where the state’s law doesn’t apply.

The news comes after another new Tesla showroom was announced in June, set to open in 2025 on lands of the Oneida Indian Nation in upstate New York.

“I think it was a move that made complete sense,” said Lori Brown, executive director of the Connecticut League of Conservation Voters, which lobbied for years to change Connecticut’s law.

. . .

Brown noted that lawmakers with car dealerships that are active in their districts, no matter their political affiliation, traditionally opposed bills allowing direct-to-consumer sales.

. . .

Over the years in numerous states, Tesla sought and was denied dealership licenses, pushed for law changes and challenged decisions in courts.

. . .

Tesla opened its first store as well as a repair shop on Native American land in 2021 in New Mexico. The facility, in Nambé Pueblo, north of Santa Fe, marked the first time the company partnered with a tribe to get around state laws, though the idea had been in the works for years.

For the full story, see:

SUSAN HAIGH, Associated Press. “Tesla to Open Showrooms on Tribal Lands to Circumvent Laws.” Omaha World-Herald (Sunday, Aug. 13, 2023): D6.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date Aug. 5, 2023, and has the title “Automaker Tesla is opening more showrooms on tribal lands to avoid state laws barring direct sales.”)

Allow Us to View the “Artifacts of Human Suffering” That Enable Us to “Appreciate the Epic Achievements of Medicine”

(p. D1) The Mütter Museum, a 19th-century repository of medical oddments and arcana at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, attracts as many as 160,000 visitors a year. Among the anatomical and pathological specimens exhibited are skulls corroded by syphilis; spines twisted by rickets; skeletons deformed by corsets; microcephalic fetuses; a two-headed baby; a bound foot from China; an ovarian cyst the size of a Jack Russell terrier; Grover Cleveland’s jaw tumor; the liver that joined the original “Siamese twins,” Cheng and Eng Bunker; and the pickled corpse of the Soap Lady, whose fatty tissues decomposed into a congealed asphalt-colored substance called adipocere.

. . .

The celebrity magician Teller, a Philadelphia native, called the Mütter a place of electrifying frankness. “We are permitted to (p. D5) confront real, not simulated, artifacts of human suffering, and are, at a gut level, able to appreciate the epic achievements of medicine,” he said.

But, like museums everywhere, the Mütter is reassessing what it has and why it has it. Recently, the institution enlisted a public-relations consultant with expertise in crisis management to contain criticism from within and without.

The problems began in February [2023] when devoted fans of the Mütter’s website and YouTube channel noticed that all but 12 of the museum’s 450 or so images and videos had been removed.

. . .

Ms. Quinn had tasked 13 unnamed people — medical historians, bioethicists, disability advocates, members of the community — with providing feedback on the digital collection. “Folks from a wide background,” Ms. Quinn said in an interview.

. . .

Blowback to Ms. Quinn’s ethical review was ferocious. An online petition garnered the signatures of nearly 33,000 Mütter enthusiasts who insisted that they loved the museum and its websites as they were. The petition criticized Ms. Quinn and her boss, Dr. Mira Irons, the president and chief executive of the College of Physicians, for decisions predicated on “outright disdain of the museum.” The complaint called for the reinstatement of all web content and urged the college’s board of trustees to fire the two women immediately. (To date, about one-quarter of the videos have been reinstated.)

Moreover, in June [2023], The Wall Street Journal ran an opinion piece entitled “Cancel Culture Comes for Philly’s Weirdest Museum,” in which Stanley Goldfarb, a former director of the college, wrote that the museum’s new “woke leaders” appeared eager to cleanse the institution of anything uncomfortable. Robert Hicks, director of the Mütter from 2008 to 2019, voiced similar sentiments this spring when he quit as a museum consultant. His embittered resignation letter, which he released to the press, stated that Dr. Irons “has said before staff that she ‘can’t stand to walk through the museum,’” and it advised the trustees to investigate her and Ms. Quinn, both of whom Dr. Hicks believed held “elitist and exclusionary” views of the Mütter.

. . .

Dr. Hicks remains unhappy with the new perspective. “Dr. Mütter would have been confused at the dictum that the museum should be about health, not death,” he lamented in his resignation letter. “The principle emblazoned at the entrance of many anatomy theaters, ‘This is where the dead serve the living,’ is readily understood by museum visitors without special guidance by Dr. Irons.”

For the full story, see:

Franz Lidz. “Should a Hall of Human Curiosities Dial It Down?” The New York Times (Tuesday, August 15, 2023): D1 & D5.

(Note: ellipses, and bracketed years, added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date Aug. 13, 2023, and has the title “A Museum of ‘Electrifying Frankness’ Weighs Dialing It Down.”)

For more on the innovative surgeon who founded the Mütter Museum, see:

Aptowicz, Cristin O’Keefe. Dr. Mütter’s Marvels: A True Tale of Intrigue and Innovation at the Dawn of Modern Medicine. New York: Gotham Books, 2014.

“FDR’s Policies Laid the Foundations for Generations of Hardship” for Black Americans

(p. A13) Just past the midway point of “Black Americans, Civil Rights, and the Roosevelts”—a powerful and powerfully disturbing exhibition at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum—you can pick up a headset and listen to parts of a secretly recorded White House meeting on Sept. 27, 1940 (a transcript is also provided).

. . .

. . ., FDR nonchalantly settles into condescension and caricature. He emphasizes his appreciation of black servicemen, recalling “my colored messenger in the Navy Department”: “I gave him to Louis Howe, who was terribly fond of him.” And he promises to support opportunities for Negroes. In the Navy, he suggests, they could play in bands: “There’s no reason why we shouldn’t have a colored band on some of these ships, because they’re darn good at it.”

It is a shock to come upon these words. They even raise a question of just how much the administration’s sluggishness in dealing with racial issues was due to the power of Southern Democrats.

. . .

. . . the exhibition argues . . . that FDR’s policies laid the foundations for generations of hardship. The Social Security Act of 1935, for example, is criticized for not including “farm and domestic workers, who were disproportionately Black. This kept nearly two-thirds of Black workers out of the program”—in part, the text suggests, because of Southern Democrats’ racist influence. The exhibition also argues that the “redlining” of neighborhoods by Roosevelt’s Home Owners’ Loan Corporation, which mapped out areas with the highest probability of mortgage defaults, harmed the very neighborhoods where most blacks lived, with an effect lasting generations.

Racism, of course, should not be dismissed as a factor, but these are complicated issues, and much literature challenges any sweeping assertions. Did racism play an important role in excluding farm workers and domestics from Social Security, as the exhibition ends up suggesting? A 2010 Social Security Administration paper argues otherwise, noting that 74% of all excluded workers in those categories were white. Moreover, the act also excluded the self-employed, crews of ships, and employees of nonprofit religious and educational institutions. A 1997 paper in Political Science Quarterly argued that such initial exclusions were likely due to difficulties in how taxes and payrolls were handled, adding too many challenges to the administration of a new social program. Studies of redlining have also led to questions about its racial origins and effects. Redlined areas housed large proportions of a city’s black residents, but about three-quarters of the inhabitants were white. And as a 2021 paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research suggests, the maps were reflections of economic conditions, not racial demarcations, and “had little effect” on the distribution of federal mortgage activity.

For the full exhibition review, see:

Edward Rothstein. “Black Americans and the New Deal.” The Wall Street Journal (Thursday, Aug. 24, 2023): A13.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the exhibition review has the date August 23, 2023, and has the title “Black Americans, Civil Rights, and the Roosevelts’ Review: A New Look at the New Deal Era.”)

The 2021 National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) paper mentioned above was published online in 2022 (in advance of print publication):

Fishback, Price, Jonathan Rose, Ken Snowden, and Thomas Storrs. “New Evidence on Redlining by Federal Housing Programs in the 1930s.” Journal of Urban Economics (online on May 11, 2022).

To Charge EV on Road Required Downloading an App, Which Required Non-Dodgy Cell Service

(p. B5) The adoption of electric vehicles represents the biggest shift in our energy and transportation systems in more than a century—but it’s also the biggest shift in consumer electronics since the debut of the iPhone. On both counts, progress is accelerating in the U.S. And on both counts, we are far from where we need to be.

A recent 1,000 mile road-trip in the longest-range electric vehicle you can buy brought this home for me. That journey was as worrisome as it was thrilling, and it clarified how much more needs to be done for drivers to have a consistent and satisfying experience on par with buying a gasoline vehicle.

. . .

On my trip, there was one moment in particular when the future felt like a big step backward.

It happened when I arrived at a street charging station in Montreal, and discovered that I’d have to download an app and prepay for the electricity I wanted to use. Cell service was dodgy, and I had to find a better signal to download the app. Had I been unable to find a decent signal, I would have been out of luck. (Even once I downloaded the app, the first station I connected to didn’t work—another issue that sometimes comes up at charging stations.)

Unfortunately, having to download an app is common practice for proprietary networks.

For the full commentary, see:

Christopher Mims. “Why America Isn’t Ready for the EV Takeover.” The Wall Street Journal (Saturday, June 10, 2023): B5.

(Note: ellipsis added.)

(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date June 9, 2023, and has the same title as the print version.)

Crisis in Wind Industry Due to Inflation, Regulatory, and Grid Connection Hurdles

(p. B5) The wind business, viewed by governments as key to meeting climate targets and boosting electricity supplies, is facing a dangerous market squall.

After months of warnings about rising prices and logistical hiccups, developers and would-be buyers of wind power are scrapping contracts, putting off projects and postponing investment decisions. The setbacks are piling up for both onshore and offshore projects, but the latter’s problems are more acute.

In recent weeks, at least 10 offshore projects totaling around $33 billion in planned spending have been delayed or otherwise hit the doldrums across the U.S. and Europe.

“At the moment, we are seeing the industry’s first crisis,” said Anders Opedal, chief executive of Equinor, in an interview.

. . .

The holdup of projects that could generate 11.7 gigawatts—enough to power roughly all Texas households and then some—likely pushes 2030 offshore wind targets out of reach for the Biden administration and European governments.

. . .

(p. B11) The list of woes is long: inflation, supply-chain backlogs, rising interest rates, long permit and grid connection timelines. The increasing pace of the energy transition has created a loop of escalating costs.

For the full story, see:

Mari Novik and Jennifer Hiller. “Wind Power Stumbles as Problems Mount.” The Wall Street Journal (Tuesday, Aug. 8, 2023): B5 & B11.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the story was updated Aug. 7, 2023, and has the title “Wind Industry in Crisis as Problems Mount. The online version says that the title of the print version is “Wind Power Stumbles as Cost, Logistical Problems Mount.” But my print version of the national edition had the shorter title “Wind Power Stumbles as Problems Mount.”)

Deregulation “Unleashed Powerful Forces of Innovation and Consumer Benefit”

(p. A13) The railroads harmed small merchants who were tied to the older system of roads and canals. But even those who benefited from railroads—notably farmers and producers of raw materials—feared the power of the enterprises that provided them with large new markets. The anxieties of innumerable small players generated powerful political energy, culminating in the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887, which created the ICC—and with it the template of the independent regulatory commission.

The historian Gabriel Kolko famously argued that the ICC was created by and for the railroads themselves, as a solution to a problem of intense competition. But more-recent research has shown that the interests of shippers were also at play, and by the early 20th century the ICC had essentially been captured by the shippers. The result for the railroads was absurdly low rates of return and an inability to raise capital. The ICC also became a bottleneck through which virtually all railroad business decisions had to pass.

Thus began the long and steady decline of the American railroad industry, which wasn’t arrested until surface freight was deregulated (and the ICC ultimately abolished) in the 1970s. Throughout its life, the ICC repeatedly stood in the way of innovation, including containerized shipping.

. . .

It is fashionable nowadays to dismiss unleashed powerful forces of innovation and consumer benefit of the late 20th century as an unfortunate if fleeting episode of “neoliberalism.” In fact, dismantling some of America’s rigid and retrogressive regulatory institutions unleashed powerful forces of innovation and consumer benefit. Before we attempt to rebuild those structures, we need to examine the lessons of history.

For the full commentary, see:

Richard N. Langlois. “Warren and Graham Emulate History’s Failed Regulators.” The Wall Street Journal (Saturday, Aug. 5, 2023): A13.

(Note: ellipsis added.)

(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date August 4, 2023, and has the same title as the print version.)

Langlois’s commentary can be viewed as an application of the narrative in his book:

Langlois, Richard N. The Corporation and the Twentieth Century: The History of American Business Enterprise. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2023.

Psychedelics May Return Brains to More “Plastic” Adaptable Form

(p. C4) New studies suggest that psychedelics, carefully administered in controlled settings with trained therapists, can help treat mental illnesses like depression, addiction and PTSD. But just how do psychedelics achieve these therapeutic effects?

A new study in the journal Nature by the neuroscientist Gul Dolen at Johns Hopkins and colleagues tackles this question.

. . .

. . ., Dolen’s team gave mice a variety of psychedelics and observed their effects. Mice, like people, have what are called “critical periods” for various kinds of development—times when the brain is especially open to new experiences and especially likely to learn and change. After a critical period closes, that type of learning is much harder. These specific critical periods reflect a more general phenomenon: Brains start out more “plastic,” easier to change and more sensitive to experience, and get more efficient but more rigid as people—or mice—grow older.

. . .

As expected, the different drugs acted through different chemical mechanisms. But all of them ultimately activated genes that made the brain more “plastic,” more easily changed.

Other research shows that psychedelics may reopen other kinds of critical periods. For example, amblyopia, or “lazy eye,” must be treated early for the visual cortex to rewire properly. But a 2020 study published in Current Biology found that ketamine reopened the visual critical period in mice, allowing older animals to recover from amblyopia.

These results have important implications for psychedelic therapy. We know that the effects of psychedelics depend on “set and setting”—the context and the attitude of the person who takes them—and that psychedelic experiences can feel wonderful or terrible to the user. The new research suggests that psychedelics work by opening up the brain to new possibilities, allowing it to escape from old ruts, change and learn. That might give humans a chance to change addictive habits or destructive thought patterns.

For the full commentary, see:

Alison Gopnik. “MIND & MATTER; The New Promise of Psychedelics.” The Wall Street Journal (Saturday, July 22, 2023): C4.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date July 20, 2023, and has the same title as the print version.)

The academic article discussed in the passages above is:

Nardou, Romain, Edward Sawyer, Young Jun Song, Makenzie Wilkinson, Yasmin Padovan-Hernandez, Júnia Lara de Deus, Noelle Wright, Carine Lama, Sehr Faltin, Loyal A. Goff, Genevieve L. Stein-O’Brien, and Gül Dölen. “Psychedelics Reopen the Social Reward Learning Critical Period.” Nature 618, no. 7966 (June 14, 2023): 790-98.

Foundations with an End Date May Honor the Donor’s Intent

(p. C6) This year, the William E. Simon Foundation is closing its doors, or “sunsetting,” in the parlance of modern philanthropy. Since it was founded in 1967 by former Treasury Secretary William E. Simon and his wife Carol, the foundation has given away almost $300 million to the causes that mattered to them—faith, family and education.

. . .

Traditionally, sunsetting a foundation has appealed to more conservative donors. Bill Simon, Jr., who manages the Simon Foundation along with his six siblings, says that his late father set a closing date because he had seen “foundations that seemed to veer off of their donor’s intent.” Simon recalls: “Dad trusted his own seven children to know where he would have put his money…But as much as he loved his grandchildren, he did not know them.”

Indeed, Henry Ford II resigned from the Ford Foundation’s board in 1977, writing that its hostility to capitalism had thrown it off course: “Perhaps it is time for the trustees and staff to examine the question of our obligations to our economic system and to consider how the foundation, as one of the system’s most prominent offspring, might act most wisely to strengthen and improve its progenitor.”

For the full commentary, see:

Naomi Schaefer Riley. “Philanthropists Discover the Value of ‘Sunsetting’.” The Wall Street Journal (Saturday, Aug. 5, 2023): C6.

(Note: ellipsis added.)

(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date August 3, 2023, and has the same title as the print version.)

Improved AI Models Do Worse at Identifying Prime Numbers

(p. A2) . . . new research released this week reveals a fundamental challenge of developing artificial intelligence: ChatGPT has become worse at performing certain basic math operations.

The researchers at Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley said the deterioration is an example of a phenomenon known to AI developers as drift, where attempts to improve one part of the enormously complex AI models make other parts of the models perform worse.

“Changing it in one direction can worsen it in other directions,” said James Zou, a Stanford professor who is affiliated with the school’s AI lab and is one of the authors of the new research. “It makes it very challenging to consistently improve.”

. . .

The goal of the team of researchers, consisting of Lingjiao Chen, a computer-science Ph.D. student at Stanford, along with Zou and Berkeley’s Matei Zaharia, is to systematically and repeatedly see how the models perform over time at a range of tasks.

Thus far, they have tested two versions of ChatGPT: version 3.5, available free online to anyone, and version 4.0, available via a premium subscription.

The results aren’t entirely promising. They gave the chatbot a basic task: identify whether a particular number is a prime number. This is the sort of math problem that is complicated for people but simple for computers.

Is 17,077 prime? Is 17,947 prime? Unless you are a savant you can’t work this out in your head, but it is easy for computers to evaluate. A computer can just brute force the problem—try dividing by two, three, five, etc., and see if anything works.

To track performance, the researchers fed ChatGPT 1,000 different numbers. In March, the premium GPT-4, correctly identified whether 84% of the numbers were prime or not. (Pretty mediocre performance for a computer, frankly.) By June its success rate had dropped to 51%.

. . .

The phenomenon of unpredictable drift is known to researchers who study machine learning and AI, Zou said. “We had the suspicion it could happen here, but we were very surprised at how fast the drift is happening.”

For the full commentary, see:

Josh Zumbrun. “THE NUMBERS; AI Surprise: It’s Unlearning Basic Math.” The Wall Street Journal (Saturday, Aug. 5, 2023): A2.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date August 4, 2023, and has the title “THE NUMBERS; Why ChatGPT Is Getting Dumber at Basic Math.”)